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 As a creative nation, Britain can produce playwrights, novelists and comedians without parallel, but internationally respected British movie scriptwriters are rare indeed. An attempt to improve on this situation is now underway backed by government training agency Skillset. The film industry has been headhunting to poach top talent from other writing genres for movie hothousing.
 Supporting the scheme are film luminaries like Mike Figgis and Deborah Moggach, while the select band of writers includes Toby Young, the author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Rob Gittins, whose television and radio credits include EastEnders, Meg Rosoff, the author of award-winning novel How We Live Now, and Alison Penton Harper, a former advertising executive who won a Richard and Judy writing competition.
This group, known as the Writers Circle met for the first time this week. They will be trying to emulate Tom Stoppard, David Hare, Patrick Marber, Simon Pegg and Harold Pinter who all made the leap from stage, television or books to the big screen.
  The initiative is being run by the Script Factory. Briony Hanson, the not-for-profit organisation's director, said members wondered whether they would meet resistance when they tried to poach from other fields. But more than 500 people applied.
"We thought we would look at some of the most interesting writers and see if we could persuade them to dip their toes into the screenwriting business. We'll give them some facts, some skills, some tools, that might help them make that leap."
 Workshops followed by dinners with senior figures. Subjects will include the structure of the industry, a writer's working relationship with the director and the development process. "At the end of this year, we want to think that there will be people of great talent who have a good chance of getting through the doors and getting films made," Ms Hanson said.
The Writers' Circle inaugural meeting on Tuesday was adressed by Duncan Kenworthy, the chairman of the British film academy, Bafta, and producer of hits including 28 Days Later and Love, Actually.
 "This is one of those ideas that you know is working because you think, 'Why hasn't it been done before?'" he said after the inaugural meeeting.
"It makes sense to assume that people who know how to write can make the switch than gamble on people who have never written before. The best screenwriters have often come from other genres, such as Anthony Minghella, who started as a playwright, and Richard Curtis, on television,” he said.
"And in this group there are really quite starry writers. It's not as if they're beginners in any sense except in the transition to film. Scripts are the foundation of a good movie,” he added. "You can ruin a good script in transforming it into a film, but it's very hard to make a good film out of a bad script."
 Author Toby Young said he had always wanted to write a film. He had previously attended several screenwriting courses and produced three or four scripts, without success before now.
"I even went to Los Angeles in 2004 with my wife and child in order to pursue a career in it that went pear-shaped," he said.
  Young said he hoped that this might finally help him break through. "I've got an idea for a screenplay I want to write over the course of the next nine months whilst a member of the Writer's Circle." he said. "I hope to really take advantage of being in a group of like-minded writers and the interaction with the industry."
The other writers selected are How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Rob Gittins, whose television and radio credits include EastEnders, Meg Rosoff, the author of award-winning novel How We Live Now, and Alison Penton Harper, a former advertising executive who won a Richard and Judy writing competition.
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To assume there's no screenwriting talent in this country is a scandal. Or is it just the 'internationally renowned' bit that matters?
The problem's less that we have a shortage of screenwriters, more that we have a shortage of producers who can get films made, a shortage of money to fund those films and a surplus of public money being funneled into Skillset.
For those lucky playwrights, novelists and Eastenders hacks I say - good for you - you might get dinner with Mike Figgis but be prepared for disappointment when your hot script ends up on some two-bit producer's shelf catching dust.